


Mid-Term Break

by afinecollector (orphan_account)



Series: Kidlock Oneshots [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Asperger's, Asperger's Syndrome, Big Brother Mycroft, Brotherly Love, Death, Drug Use, Funeral, Gen, Holmesian, Hurt/Comfort, Kid!Lock, Kidlock, Powerplay, Teen!Sherlock, Teenlock, Young Sherlock Holmes - Freeform, asd, aspie!sherlock, family values, fraternal relationship, references of drug use, teen!lock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-07-19 08:12:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7352980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/afinecollector
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock is nineteen and away at University when his Grandmother passes away. Mycroft makes the drive out to collect him.<br/>They express their grief in true Holmesian style, and Mycroft proves that he loves his brother in the strangest of ways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mid-Term Break

**Author's Note:**

> Title and poetry quotes taken from the Seamus Heaney poem "Mid-Term Break".

_"I sat all morning in the college sick bay  
Counting bells knelling classes to a close." _

 

"Sherlock." Sherlock raised his head and gave up examining the dry skin around the tips of his gnawed-down fingernails. Ms Amberleigh, the aging secretary with her Cat Woman glasses and her bottom that moved like six kittens tied up in a bag beneath her flowing floral skirt, appeared around the door frame that led out into the welcoming reception hall of the University. His eyes, he hoped, didn't convey the sadness he was feeling when she smiled warmly at him and approached with her hands clasped together in front of her. She reached up with her left, manicured hand and removed her glasses from the edge of the nose and let them hang around her neck on their thick chain. "Your brother is here, my dear." 

Sherlock frowned. "Where's my mother?" Ms Amberleigh offered a sympathetic shrug. 

"There is a lot for the family to be getting on with," She offered after a moment of consideration. As she spoke, Sherlock could see her far-too-pink lipstick had bled onto her dentures. It aggravated him. "I would imagine it was more convenient for your brother to come to collect you." Sherlock pushed himself out of the chair and rose to his feet, taking his bag from the floor beside him and straightened up. "All my love to your family, my dear." She said, touching her hand to Sherlock's back as he proceeded her through the corridor and out into the reception. 

Beyond the glass hallway doors and divides, Sherlock's eyes fell to his brother, loitering in the large reception. He paced back and forth, but his hair was neat and he was wearing his usual tailored attire. Mycroft had not planned on coming here, Sherlock deduced. He'd be wearing his sweater if he had. What use was a suit and being fabulously groomed when one was preparing a funeral at home? Ms Amberleigh released the electrical lock on the reception door and let Sherlock through, into the vast space. 

"Thank you." Mycroft spoke deeply and professionally, not looking at Sherlock at all as he gave Ms Amberleigh a sickeningly sweet smile. "And thank the directors on our behalf; we appreciate their letting Sherlock take this break." 

"Bereavement leave is always permitted. Sherlock is a bright boy, I'm sure it won't take long for him to catch up once he returns." She gave Mycroft a smile that bordered on flirtatious and he saw the lipstick too. 

"Sherlock." Mycroft said, by way of addressing him and ordering him to walk along side him, back to the car, in one stiff word. It was rather like that with Mycroft. Sherlock's name was not an endearment, or a title, it was merely a word. In fact it wasn't even 'Sherlock'. It was just sherlock. 

They left the building in silence and stepped out into the early summer sunshine that warmed the air and brightened every item in view. It seemed unfitting; brightness on a day of grief seemed like a blow, like a mock of the sadness one should be feeling. Mycroft reached the car before Sherlock, who loitered with his steps and dragged his feet. He unlocked the car and waited for Sherlock to reach the passenger's side before he climbed in. Sherlock slipped comfortably into the front seat alongside his brother and pushed his bag down at his feet. 

"You're to shower and change once we get home; Mummy wants you to wear the suit she bought you for Dad's award ceremony at the Club." Mycroft instructed bluntly as he pushed the key into the ignition and turn the motor over. 

"It's grey." Sherlock said simply. 

"Granny wasn't a somber person." Mycroft retorted, and Sherlock gave him a sideways glance in as deep a scowl as he could muster. "Seat belt." Sherlock huffed a sigh as he reached around and fastened the constricting seat belt across his chest. "How long has that dear, old Ms Amberleigh been a raging alcoholic?" Mycroft commented off-handily as he steered the car out of the university grounds. 

"About as long as you've been homosexual." Sherlock said without flinching, his chin resting in his hand as his elbow rested on the car door and his eyes stared at the road as it passed him. 

"Is there any need for crassness, Sherlock?" Mycroft tutted. 

Sherlock released his chin and turned his face to Mycroft with a sickening smile. "Always." He smudged his features back to their usual state. "Besides, she's not an alcoholic. She's a pill-popper." 

"Defend." Mycroft smirked, eyes on the road. 

"The jittering, the sleepy eyes... and the fact that she does not radiate the smell of any alcoholic substance through her pores belies your idea of alcoholism on a chronic scale." Sherlock reeled. "And I watched her take a strip of Diazepam from the confiscation container in the sick-bay." Mycroft snorted in a solid grunt by way of reply. 

The two sat in relative quite for a few miles, the monotonous sound of the road beneath the tires the only sound to focus their minds on anything other than where they were headed and why. Sherlock had considered asking one or two questions but had somehow managed to contain them. That was until he couldn't stand the agonising quite any longer for fear the noises in his mind would deafen him. 

"Why didn't Mother come to pick me up?" Sherlock curled his lanky body up onto the seat, feet and all tucked in beneath him, and angled his body in such a way that he was facing his brother and sitting across the chair rather than in it. 

"She's planning the funeral of her mother, Sherlock. Mummy is in no fit state to drive." Mycroft stated without looking across at his brother. Even so, he knew what Sherlock's face would be doing - set in a firm pout, eyes pinched and focused, right elbow resting on his bent up knee whilst his nimble fingers twirled curls around themselves absentmindedly. 

Sherlock exhaled through his nose, a habit Mycroft hated, and gnawed his bottom lip for a moment. "How many gin and lime's has she had since she heard?" 

"My last count was four." Mycroft said immediately. "Perhaps that has doubled in number now." 

Sherlock let his head fall onto the head rest and pulled his fingers out of his hair. "How did it happen?" 

"Well, she raided the cupboard while Dad was..." 

"No, idiot." Sherlock snapped, and Mycroft actually turned to examine his face. "Granny!" 

Mycroft's eyes fixed back onto the road. "Neurological Event." He said, quietly. 

Sherlock twisted the words in his mouth silently. "She died of a stroke." He whispered. "How can one survive cancer to die of a stroke?" 

Mycroft cleared his throat, "The body is a wondrous instrument, Sherlock. And medical intervention can only go so far. Rogue cells, it seems, are curable in some cases while a brain that has been starved of oxygen fails to thrive." 

"Don't mock me, I'm studying chemistry and biology, I know _how_ it happened." Sherlock growled, pure annoyance evident on the tip of his tongue. "I was..." 

"Being sentimental. Yes, I know." Mycroft cut in. 

Silence fell again over the car and Sherlock's hand found it's way back into his ragtag 'do of curls atop his head. He fisted his locks and pulled them straight before releasing them, letting them lightly recoil on his forehead. 

"I expect she'll be drunk when we get home." Sherlock wondered aloud. "And Dad will be locked in the office, pretending it isn't happening. Is Isabelle helping with the funeral?" 

Mycroft gave a nod without looking around, "Yes, she and Aunt Eva arrived shortly before I left to collect you. I dare say she and Mummy are as bad as one another while Isabelle runs around like the frightful headless chicken she usually mimics." 

Sherlock smiled. "That's no way to talk about your cousin." 

"Alas, I do it anyway." Mycroft quipped. "Sit properly," he said with a sneer. "You're making my spine tingle." 

"I'm comfortable." Sherlock said, turning his fingers through his hair again. "I hope they won't bring Granny to the house." Mycroft considered Sherlock's concern; did people still do that? Display their loved ones, now deceased, in the living room? 

"No." Mycroft said quietly. "Mummy doesn't want it." 

Sherlock felt a lift of relief in his mind. One less thing to be concerned about. "How is Isabelle?" 

"The same over-eating, fat, and stupid person she has always been." Mycroft commented without a thought. 

"Still?" Sherlock sighed. 

"We can talk about it, you know?" Mycroft said, his voice somewhat softer in tone than the whole drive so far. "About Granny, about...how you feel about it." 

Sherlock frowned deeply, "To what end? It won't bring her back." 

"True." Mycroft agreed, "But people often discuss their feelings on loved ones when they pass away." 

Sherlock considered Mycroft's words for a moment. He said pass away; not die, not leave us, not meet death. He coated it, he softened it, he...humanised it. Granny _passed away_. Hearing it that way, from a man more emotionally closed off than himself, made Sherlock's eyes feel hot and his throat feel sore and tight. He swallowed, trying to avoid the pain but it only served to allow a sob to escape. 

"I won't tease." Mycroft promised, more in earnest than Sherlock had ever heard his brother sound. 

Sherlock rested his head on the head rest again and closed his eyes, pushing the tears down his cheeks out of his vision. "I feel hollow inside, as though I'm on that never ending bend of a rollercoaster that drags your insides back." 

"It's grief, Sherlock. You're going to miss her." Mycroft explained.

"I feel like I want..." Sherlock wet his lips with his tongue. Mycroft sneaked a look to his side to examine his face. 

"Want what, Sherlock?" Mycroft asked. "To get high?" Sherlock's eyes widened and bore into the side of Mycroft's face. "You wore your sleeves rolled up in the Easter break. I saw the marks." Sherlock's face flushed - he didn't know if he were angry or embarrassed. Perhaps both. "Don't ever let me find you with that filth around me. And don't let me see you with your sleeves rolled this week; if Mummy found out, she'd..." Mycroft sighed. "One more time, Sherlock, and I will make sure you never do it again. Am I clear?" Sherlock's eyes continued to burn into Mycroft's face. Risking a crash, Mycroft turned to meet his gaze. "Am I clear, William?" 

Sherlock swallowed heavily and nodded his head. "Yes." he whispered. 

"We're five miles out," Mycroft said, a switch flipping. "Put your feet down, sit properly and make sure you're looking this somber when we go inside the house. Understand?" 

"Yes." Sherlock repeated himself. Mycroft flicked his eyes over Sherlock a final time before turning the car into the drive way of their home. He looked sad, disheveled and afraid. Mycroft was ninety nine percent sure that it has nothing to do with their Granny.


End file.
